COMMENTARY: Seeing beyond today, dreaming into tomorrow

(RNS) As politicians dig into Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s graduate school writings to find ammunition against her Supreme Court nomination, I shudder at their deceitful quest. As St. Peter told the people of Jerusalem, the young are supposed to “prophesy” about a world they barely know and “see visions” of a future for which they […]

(RNS) As politicians dig into Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s graduate school writings to find ammunition against her Supreme Court nomination, I shudder at their deceitful quest.

As St. Peter told the people of Jerusalem, the young are supposed to “prophesy” about a world they barely know and “see visions” of a future for which they aren’t yet accountable. I feel sorry for any young adult who isn’t ranting about the world, building cloud castles, exploring ideas, and speaking certainty before accepting ambiguity.

How else do we find our center except by exploring our edges? How else do we grow except by falling, and gain depth except by wading beyond the shallow?


The question should always be, “What have you learned? How have you changed? What do you have to give today because yesterday you were incomplete?”

If the young aren’t allowed to see visions, then the old certainly won’t be allowed to “dream dreams,” as Peter went on to say. If what I believed at age 23 is held up as my final standard, then what I believe today is of no consequence, and where I sense God leading me is simply delusion.

In that horrible quest to derail today by citing yesterday, there is no hope. Nothing changes, nothing gets better.

I have no particular opinion for or against Elena Kagan as a prospective justice. Personally, I wish she had been less careful, less willing to stifle her voice in order to maintain a spotless record. But that’s the course she chose. The relevant question is what she learned from it.

I’m troubled by the relentless dredging up of yesterday in order to condemn today. We must dare to live, or else we die. We must use the minds God gave us, even if we discover later that we didn’t know it all. Risking and failing are the only way to learn.

Finding a crime in a candidate’s past is one thing, but finding an extravagant opinion is quite another. That musing could signal a lively intellect and a willingness to venture beyond the safe — both activities on which our civilization depends.


Rather than pounce on an opinion formed in yesterday’s engagement with reality, Kagan’s examiners should ask for more. What have you learned in subsequent years that affirms or changes your mind?

This, of course, is precisely the examination we should be giving the rest of the Supreme Court, as it falls into the hands of so-called “originalists,” who want the thought world of the 18th century to have a final say on our lives in the 21st. No less should we ask religious fundamentalists what kind of God would have had nothing new to say since 150 A.D.

Peter was the poster child for personal growth. The man was shallow, clueless and weak — until, by the grace of God, he became deep, wise and courageous.

Imagine a Christian movement founded on men and women who were unwilling to change, unwilling to abandon precedent, unwilling to seek more of God.

It takes spine to dream, to have visions, to seek growth when others deny possibility, to rely on grace in a world that disdains mercy. Whether at age 23 or 63, it takes spine to have a fresh thought, to change one’s mind, to see more today than one saw yesterday.

Without such spine, we are lost.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)


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